Dean Jones’ Cricket Tips: The things They Don’t Teach You at the Academy

121 Pages·2017·5.44 MB·English

by  Dean Jones

DEAN JONES’ CRICKET TIPS
Dean Jones played 52 Tests for Australia between 1984 and 1992, scoring 3,631 runs at an average of
46.55, and making 11 centuries. He also played in 164 one-day internationals for Australia between 1984
and 1994, scoring 6,068 runs at an average of 44.61, including seven centuries.
All up, he played 245 first-class matches, scoring 19,188 runs at an average of 51.85, including 55
centuries.
Dean Jones was a pivotal member of some of Australia’s greatest cricket teams, including the 1987
World Cup-winning team, and the 1989 Ashes-winning team. His 210 in stifling heat at Chennai in 1986 is
regarded as one of the best innings ever played, and through the early 1990s he was widely regarded as the
best one-day batsman in the world.
He is one of Victoria’s greatest-ever cricketers, and captained the state. He is currently the coach of
Islamabad United in the Pakistan T20 league, and commentates on cricket for Star Sports in India and for
Macquarie Radio Network in Australia, and writes for Fairfax in Melbourne and Sydney.
With love to my three girls,
Jane, Gussie, and Phoebe
DEAN JONES’ CRICKET TIPS
(the things they don’t teach you at the Academy)
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN SPOONER
Westland Publications Ltd.
61, II Floor, Silverline Building, Alapakkam Main Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600095
93, I Floor, Shamlal Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002
First e-pub edition: 2017
First published in Australia by Scribe Publications 2016
Text copyright © Dean Jones 2016
Illustrations copyright © John Spooner 2016
First published in India by Westland Publications Ltd. 2017
All rights reserved
978-93-86224-66-8
Typeset by PrePSol Enterprises Pvt. Ltd.
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person living or dead, events and
locales is entirely coincidental.
Due care and diligence has been taken while editing and printing the book. Neither the author, publisher nor
the printer of the book hold any responsibility for any mistake that may have crept in inadvertently.
Westland Ltd, the publisher and the printers will be free from any liability for damages and losses of any
nature arising from or related to the content. All disputes are subject to the jurisdiction of competent courts
in Chennai.
CONTENTS
Batting Tips
Bowling Tips
Wicketkeeping Tips
Captaincy Tips
Fielding Tips
General Tips

INTRODUCTION
A LIFETIME’S WORTH OF ‘ONE PERCENTERS’
This book has been quite a few years in the making, when I think about it. And I
think about cricket … a lot! I love the game. It’s been my life, and as much as
the game has changed, it stays the same in many ways, too.
I last played for Australia in the 1990s, but 20 years on I am lucky to remain
involved in the game as a coach and a media commentator, right at its beating
heart.
Islamabad United is my team, and we won the inaugural title of the Pakistan
Super League T20 competition in Dubai in February 2016. What a moment that
was for all of us! I hope we can repeat that success in 2017 and I get another ice-
bucket shower. That is one ice bath that I love to take!
My television work for Star Sports takes me around the world, and allows me
to keep in touch with all the great players of the modern game, as well as some
of the legends of the recent past. Many of them, I am happy to say, are
represented in this book.
The book has been bobbing around in my mind for a few years now.
Watching young players, it occurred to me that while there is a huge amount of
coaching nowadays, there is actually too much information rolling around in
players’ heads at times. If you look at players from, say, the under-12 level
through to international cricket, they would possibly have up to 15 different
coaches during that time. Fifteen, through the age levels—to representative
cricket, to state or provincial level, and on to national level! And every single
one of those coaches would have a different philosophy and would be wanting to
do his thing.
Personally, the best three coaches that I had were my father, Barney, who was
a fine player at top-level club cricket in Melbourne when I was a boy; Keith
Stackpole, the former Australian Test opening batsman; and Bob Simpson, who
was coach of Australia when we had our great period in the late 1980s and
1990s. A lot of what they told me was old school. But old school still applies in
the game today. If I was playing today, I would hire my own coach and take him
everywhere so that I could draw upon him when I needed him, as players do in
tennis and golf, for example.
A player has to filter all this information and make his or her own decisions,
has to work out which part of what they’re told applies to his or her game. That
is a crucial part of becoming a good player. For instance, Chris Rogers, the
recent Australian Test opener, came to me a couple of years ago because he had
problems with playing spin. Rogers had played most of his cricket in Perth,
where the ball bounces trampoline-style and everyone learns to play off the back
foot, so playing on dry, turning decks was vastly different for him when he broke
into the Aussie team. Graeme Swann, England’s excellent off spinner, gave him
nightmares.
Rogers sought my help at a time when he had already made more than 20,000
runs, which shows you how the game evolves and how every player needs to
keep finding new ways of dealing with new problems. What I tried to get Chris
to do was to believe in what I taught him, then to work it out himself—in other
words, to take ownership of his thoughts and his game. In my view, that is the
key to coaching: to help the player to help him-or herself.
It is a lot easier when you have played 20 years as a professional, but not so
easy if you are starting out. When I look at modern cricketers, I really wonder
whether they are being told about the ‘one-percenters’, the little tips that can take
you from being good to great, or from average to good. That is the premise of
this book: an exercise in finding the one-percenters. Because at the very top level
of cricket, everyone has major talent, and at that point it becomes about how
your brain functions. It is that space between your ears, it is about how well you
understand your own game, understand the game itself, and how you work out
what you can and cannot do.
The best example of how the little things work is Sachin Tendulkar, the
greatest batsman of the modern era and one of the best ever. I watched him
closely and studied his statistics, and worked out that he only scored from about
30 per cent of the deliveries that he faced; this tells me, as you’re about to see,
that defence is a primary weapon in batting—although it is not what they show
on the highlight reels.
Yes, the game has changed, but it is still a contest between bat and ball. The
players hit it further than they used to, and the tactics have been tweaked, but it
has not changed as much as people think it has. Everything has been tried before,
pretty much, when you think about teams going hard early in one-day
internationals, which the Sri Lankans did with Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh
Kaluwitharana in the 1990s. Back then, the Australians did well when batting by
holding on to their wickets until around the 30th over, and then accelerating, but
Pakistan were doing the same to win the World Cup in 1992. Often, you will see
what looks like a new method, but the truth is if you delve into the past it will
have been tried before.
So this book is about one-percenters, and finding the edge. It is targeted at
absolutely every cricketer, from eight-year-olds to internationals, boys and girls.
I am thankful to John Spooner, the great journalist and illustrator who was with
The Age newspaper in Melbourne for so many years, for providing the artwork.
When I met John, I discovered that he was a cricket enthusiast who is still
playing the game at an age that I am not about to mention here! Also, thanks to
Martin Blake, a long-time friend and sports journalist, for doing the editing and
getting involved in the project, as well as to Henry Rosenbloom, the founder and
publisher of Scribe, who so warmly greeted the idea when we pitched it to him.
We all found common ground in cricket, the beautiful game.
I am grateful to the dozens of great cricketers whom I badgered for a tip or
two to put the cream on the cake of this book—from the immortal Sachin
Tendulkar, to Wasim Akram, to Nathan Lyon, and to all the rest. Their
contribution is immense.
I hope you enjoy it. I certainly loved putting it together.
Dean Jones